The Hotbed of Moral Turpentine
by Vampire-No-Sparkle
Summary: highschool!AU. Chloe Beale is a vaguely overdramatic wannabe writer, currently plying her trade on the school newspaper, led by control-freak Aubrey Posen. What happens when Chloe is sent on an undercover infiltration mission, where she must join Beca Mitchell and her gang of rebel alt-kids in order to get that scoop they've been dying for?
1. Prologue

**Warning: Chloe is a little OOC at first. She fades into her film character soon enough, don't worry.**

**PROLOGUE**

**January 14****th****, 2013**

Beca Mitchell has creepy friends.

Perhaps that is not the best way to start a story; stories about uninteresting people must, of course, start with the traditional "It was a bright and sunny day". That's the way it has been done throughout the years, and who am I to question thousands of pre-schoolers, penning their first sentence, whilst adoring parents crowd around them, cooing and making proud, generic noises?

I'm just Chloe Beale. Not J.K Rowling, not J.R Tolkien, not Charles Dickens. I'm just a high school student, putting pen to paper for the sake of boredom. I'm not writing about dying orphans, or vampires, or wizards, or elves. Just… just life as it is.

And Beca Mitchell- DJ, popular rebel, and badass extraordinaire- is my current favourite thing to write about. So what of it? She's not so bad.

For example, just the other day, she spoke to me. "Dude, you're standing on my bag." Those were her exact words. Pretty cool, huh? Since she never speaks to kids like me, it was almost an honour to be addressed by the famous Beca Mitchell. Hah, I seem like a moron from reading this, I'm sure.

Well, that would be incorrect. I'd bet money that my grade average is higher than yours.

Here is it, for what it's worth: I dislike Beca Mitchell. She's obnoxious, full of herself, smokes weed, and seems to think that she's some kind of rock n' roll Joan of Arc. And you know the worst part of all of this? I wasn't even standing on her bag, like, _on purpose_. Being the journalist and photographer for the school newspaper means that you have to fit yourself into some pretty awkward places, if you get what I'm saying.

It's like today when Aubrey, the head of the school newspaper, decided to complain about how none of us have been getting decent pictures.

"You just aren't getting _out there_," she complained, tucking a pen behind her ear as she did so. She's the queen of organisation, Aubrey Posen, and is never seen without a pen somewhere on her body, as well as owning possibly the thickest pair of glasses I've ever seen in my life. Oh yes, and she's also my best friend.

As you may have noticed, I have some rather conflicting opinions. Deal with it.

"This is our last year, folks. And I, personally, want a story that will actually grab the attention of our peers and our teachers," Oh Lord, that was a rant. Aubrey's a really sweet girl, when you get to know her anyway, but she has this… well… _obsession_ with doing everything absolutely right. We haven't had a good issue since Fat Amy launched a huge investigation into horse meat in the school lunches, before realising that everyone knows and nobody cares.

Not precisely a good issue. But since the picture was of Fat Amy eating a large burger and looking generally demented, most of the popular kids got hold of the paper just to torment her. Oh well, we made good sales.

Anyway, so Aubrey was marching around, shouting at us to get it together. With every word that escaped her perfectly glossed lips, everyone seemed to be getting more and more annoyed. I'd never seen Kimmy Jin's bitch-stare quite so penetratingly evil.

Then, somebody spoke. "Aubrey, for God's sake, shut up!"

Everyone went silent. Aubrey had stopped dead; her eyes widening to frightening proportions behind her ginormous glasses. Everyone had ceased their frustrated glaring, and seemed to be looking at someone, although it wasn't precisely clear who it was.

It took me a few moments to realise that everyone, including Aubrey, were staring at me.

"Uhm…" My whole body froze up, like somebody had poured an ice-cold bucket of water over my head. As I sat there, I could almost imagine the water dripping down my shoulders, sending icy droplets down my back and into my flats. There was a long, deadly pause. And then, Aubrey spoke.

"What would you propose, then, Chloe?" In the time it took for me to turn to look at her, a look of cold fury had come onto her face. She was standing too close for comfort- having moved during the period of time in which I was too interested in imagining the water going down my back to pay attention to the proceedings- and had her arms crossed, one plucked eyebrow raised.

If looks could kill, I would have died seventy times over. I probably would also have been dismembered, and maybe even partially eaten. God, I'd never stood up to her like that before; the fear that she was going to pounce on me and tear out my throat was the biggest thought in my mind.

You see, I'm not _like that_. I'm Chloe Beale, all around nice girl, who gets walked all over by multiple people. That, my darlings, is called acceptance. It took sixteen years, four months, and twenty seven days, but I've come around to it. I'm not currently sure on the hours, minutes and seconds, but I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.

Which is why, while Aubrey was staring at me like that, I very nearly keeled over and died on the spot. Crazy, huh? You should have seen _her_. She looked like a… a maddened wolf, readying herself to leap forth and tear my throat out. Alright, maybe that's not the best metaphor. Nevertheless, she was fucking terrifying.

And I could have kept my mouth shut. I could have just smiled nervously and apologised, maybe gone under police protection, whatever. But I just had to have a really good idea right at that point, didn't I? I'm that much of a genius that I couldn't help but tell Aubrey, my psycho scary boss- and best friend, of course- the idea that I'd been plotting over and thinking about for weeks. It wasn't like I'd ever planned to tell her about it, of course. Sure, I'd _imagined _the scenario dozens of times. You know: standing there, like "I have an idea, don't you dare kill me!" and being all proud and the like.

But that, sadly, did not happen.

The reality was me nervously standing up, smiling awkwardly at my co-workers (who looked like they might shit a brick), before directing my gaze towards Aubrey.

"I have an idea," I said. Initially, I'd hoped my voice might come out confident, possibly even tremulous. But that couldn't be the reality, could it? My voice cracked half way through the word 'have', and I was forced to repeat myself. The beauty was gone by the second time through, and my previously proudly beating heart had slowed to humiliation. And then, once more, to fear.

_OhShitOhShitOhShit… _

Surprisingly enough, when I eventually mustered the courage to look Aubrey in the eye once more, she looked a little thoughtful. Still irritated at my previous outburst, but like she was genuinely about to listen to what I had to say. After a few tense moments, she sighed, bringing one hand to her face. "Alright. You didn't have to say it quite so _rudely_," She shot me a killer glare, and I once more felt the need to throw myself off the top of the Science Block, "I get that we need an idea. And if I approve of it- if I think it's lucrative enough- then, I suppose, we can go with it." Aubrey visibly swallowed, as if allowing me to give my input was physically painful to her.

A small smile worked its way onto my face. The image of Beca Mitchell was once more running through my head, and shook my ginger curls around my face, trying to distract myself. Stupid, annoying, emo, _hot_ Beca Mitchell… "Well, I was watching this movie the other day…" I chose not to tell them that I had been watching Never Been Kissed with a tub of chocolate ice-cream and multiple cats (not mine, my mother's!). "And it reminded me about undercover journalists, y' know? Going _underground_, and finding out the real story behind things. Like, go undercover on the… I don't know…" I barely stopped myself blushing. "Rebel scene."

The room was silent. Eerily so. I had a quick yet disturbing mental image of everyone having left the room during my tangent, and looked around nervously to see that everyone was still staring at me with wide eyes. Bracing myself for rejection, I clenched my fists.

But then, smiles appeared on their faces. A few of them even clapped, smiling brightly at me. Like I'd come up with this killer fucking idea that _wouldn't _get me into a shedload of trouble.

It was Aubrey's look of approval I sought out, however. And, when she finally met my gaze, she looked a little… what was it… determined? A small, rather fake looking smile came onto her lips, as she stared me down.

"Alright then, Chloe," she said, her gaze still cool. "Going underground on the rebel scene. Reporting how much pot they smoke, and how _sensitive_ they really are… Infiltration. Behind the enemy lines, so to speak."

God, she made it sound like some kind of war mission. But then again, that was Aubrey Posen: with a father in the military, she could make pouring a drink sound like some kind of deathly serious procedure.

Now, I was feeling pretty good about this whole deal. Actually feeling like I was worth something for once, you get what I mean. And then, Aubrey dropped the bombshell.

"And _you'll_ be the one doing the infiltration."

My heart practically stopped. My jaw hit the ground (not literally- that would probably result in death from bloodloss); my eyes turned into soup plates (once again, not literally). Put it like this: in any other situation, I probably would have fainted, hit my head on the way down, and died. Because that is the sort of thing that happens to me, because I'm just that kind of person.

"What?! No! I wouldn't fit in with them, even if I _did _have dyed black hair, a stick-on tattoo, and converse!"

A few people laughed. I can remember being absolutely crazed, practically leaping over my desk to grab Aubrey by the shoulders and get as close to her as humanly possible in order to back up my point. I _knew _that I couldn't fit in with the alt-kids and rebels. For Gods sake, the only alcoholic beverage I'd consumed was champagne at my auntie's wedding, and I didn't even _like _it very much!

Pure panic was running through me. Aubrey was trying to shake me off, muttering something about personal space, but I was persistent. After she'd tried to push me away multiple times, I ended up practically pinning her to the wall, eyes wide and frantic. She looked visibly afraid. _Good_. No way was I entering that crowd and hanging out with obnoxious, dumb, _hot _Beca Mitchell!

"Please! You can't do this to me!"

"Oh yes I can, Chloe Beale," Aubrey's gaze was colder than ever. Once again, the mental image of her tearing my throat out reappeared, and I stepped sheepishly backwards. Damn, I really had been awkwardly close to her, hadn't I? It's like that time I forced this teacher to give me a piggy-back, and he almost got arrested.

When I think back now about all those times, I wince. And then go and invade someone else's personal space, because that's just how I roll.

Apparently, my pleading hadn't been enough. The psycho-blonde-bitch-who-happened-to-be-my-best-fri end seemed pretty set on the idea that it would be I entering that hotbed of moral… um… turpentine. A hotbed of moral turpentine, and a cage of licentiousness, that's what I was entering into!

"You'll do it, if you don't want to be kicked off the newspaper, that is," her voice was sweet, but the tone behind it was venomous poison.

Then, she smiled. "I'll dig out that fake tattoo sheet. Fat Amy, fetch the hot water."


	2. Wrap-Arounds, Scooters, and New Kids

**To others, Chloe Beale may seem like a nice girl with, albeit, no sense of personal boundaries. Take a trip inside her head to discover her inner cynical bitch. Or is she just dumb? You will never know… Oh, so gosh darned cryptic *le wink***

**Yes, the humour is crude and full of satire. Blame my upbringing.**

**I'm Irish, which is my excuse for some of the alternate spellings. I've tried to Americanise some of them (eg. "Mom"), so bear with me :)**

Walking into school the next day was quite possibly the most sickening experience I've ever had to endure.

Okay, sure, maybe I looked a little weird. Or _extremely weird and possibly deranged. _But whatever, I'm a flexible person; I can be whoever I want to be. The dye-job hadn't gone great (at least it was only temporary…), and the fake tattoos were already peeling in a way that made me look like I had some form of skin disease, but I think I was rocking the look in general. The rips in my jeans that had taken four and a half hours to perfect with a pair of nail scissors _really_ completed it all, you know?

What can I say? I felt pretty damn sexy.

"Hey, Chlo, why have you got grey hair?"

Oh yes. I'm ashamed to say it, but I felt like a real Queen Bee. Cruising into school on my younger brother's scooter, with a dye-job that had turned a rather intense shade of grey, a pair of wrap around shades, half a dozen fake tattoos, and surgically ripped jeans. Not to mention the McFly t-shirt, that just completed the badass image.

So, in keeping with my new persona, I chose to ignore the kid who had heckled me and continued into school, before half jumping off my chosen vehicle and scooting towards the bike park. I got a few dirty looks hooking up the scooter but, once again, I chose to ignore them.

Perhaps not a wise choice, since I found myself getting pushed against a wall.

"Fuckin' wannabe…"

Oh good Lord. I was staring into the face of Bumper Allen, notorious girl-hitter and show choir brat. He used to think he was just… _it. _He really wasn't. In fact, the only person who got bullied more than Bumper Allen was Benji Applebaum. Because really, everyone bullied Benji. It was sort of impossible not to. I tended to keep out of his way, in order to keep my nice-girl image. It wasn't that Benji was a bad kid… But the smell of his weird affected people's vocals chords, making it virtually impossible not to insult him.

Bumper was similar, in that respect. Although not because he was weird: mostly because he was a complete sissy douchebag who deserved to have his head torn up and shoved up his anus, and have his arms and legs ground up and used to make meat-tofu, which I'm marginally certain does not exist. Either way, nobody liked him apart from his mother. And last I heard, she was doing time for stalking and attempting to sexually assault somebody famous.

So as he was walking away from me, after having shoved me against the wall a few more times, I felt the irrepressible urge to open my big mouth. "Your mom looks like a shelf!"

That really did it. I'm pretty sure he would have attempted (and probably failed) to tear out my newly dyed grey hair, if somebody rather unexpected hadn't stepped in his way. To be honest, I was rather surprised myself at the sudden turn of events.

Because, you know, it wasn't every day that mean, freakish, bitchy _hot _Beca Mitchell comes and stands in front of you, and defends you from the second least popular guy in school, whose mother you had said looked like a shelf.

Alright, it's not a scenario that happens to many people. Possibly nobody ever, actually. Aside from me.

Anyway, there she stood, her brown hair blowing in the breeze, releasing a wave of what could have been cigarette smoke mixed with cinnamon into my face. Her pale face was twisted into a look of hatred, her rather scrawny arms were crossed, and she stood a few inches shorter than both myself and Bumper.

Nevertheless, it was a hypnotic and shocking image.

"Back off, dude," she said, her deep blue eyes (as blue as the _OCEAN_- oh gosh darn it) staring dead into his. For a girl with a slight resemblance to a rebellious hobbit, she was rather intimidating. I could feel the hairs on my arms standing on end at the look of fear on Bumper's face. He took a step backwards, raising his palms in defeat.

"Alright, alright," he murmured; just _remembering_ the look of horror on his face still makes me smile. Sounds ridiculous, but it's become something of a staple memory in my mind. If only I'd been able to take a picture for the newspaper. Aubrey would have practically pooed herself with excitement.

"_Pictures are of far more worth to us than any article," she'd say, smiling coolly at us. She would march up and down the front of the office, twirling her pencil around her fingers. Then, she'd pause, a very serious look coming onto her face. "After all, pictures say a thousand words… Not to mention a number of our peers don't seem to know how to read."_

After Bumper had shambled off, Beca turned around to me. Even that smile made me feel a little funny inside like, you know; someone had stuck a blender inside me and turned it on. A little less painful than that, perhaps, and with less liquidised intestine… But whatever, it was a pretty awesome experience. Her eyes didn't really look like the ocean, since oceans are more green than anything else, but whatever.

"He's a douchebag, don't worry about him," she said, a crooked grin on her face.

_Oh that smile... Wait a second, what? She's being polite to me?_

Beca held out her hand, an expectant look on her face. I looked at her for a few moments, shocked in her change in demeanour, before taking her hand. We shook quickly- I nearly cried at her grip- before she let go, standing back a little way. "Weird hair, bro. Nobody told me there was a new kid around."

Like a fool, I nodded along, eyes sparkling behind my wrap-around sunglasses. Then, I started, raising my eyebrows (which I had not dyed).

_What did she mean by "new kid"? Omigod, I don't even look like Chloe Beale anymore?! Must be the sunglasses…_

Trying to remain cool, I smiled cautiously, and nodded. This was weird… Moody, rude, _hot _Beca Mitchell had never been nice to me before. Well, she wasn't exactly being nice: she'd said I had weird hair, and didn't even recognise me, even though we'd been in classes together since the beginning of middle school. Not the most pleasant greeting, but that was just Beca's way, I supposed.

"Yeah, I'm… you know… a new kid," My incredibly intelligent mind told me to lie to her, a wide smile coming onto my face. It would be a great way to infiltrate her gang, and get the scoop I'd been working for all these years. Sure, the newspaper wasn't exactly a _huge_ deal, but I did need something for college. It would look _great _on my resumé to have done something like that. And who knew? Thoughts of being some kind of detective-journalist-bounty hunter-celebrity entered my mind, and I was briefly sucked into a daydream.

When I emerged, I realised that Beca was staring at me, her eyebrows raised. She looked a little amused, the corner of her lip curled upwards. My heart practically stopped.

"Uhm... Hi." She looked a little weirded out. I was half expecting her to sidle off, but she stayed firmly in place. "I'm Beca Mitchell."

"I'm…" My mind had chosen that exact moment to go completely blank. I _couldn't_ tell her my real name, in case she recognised it or something, so I would have to come up with a disguise. The mission required me to go incognito, and I very nearly squealed with excitement. It all felt so… official… But who could I pass myself as?

"Samantha Nicholl. Call me Sam." I replied.

The first face that had appeared in my mind was the face of the kid who used to live next door to me; an emo kid, who played guitar, never shut up, seemed to have a different boyfriend every night, and was probably one of the closest friends that I ever had. Nice chick.

Beca nodded, and then winked at me. I very nearly keeled over, but managed to sustain myself.

"Well then, _Sam_, I'd better be going. See you around."

She walked away.

I stayed rooted to the spot for a moment, kind of unsure if I was about to burst into hysterical laughter, sprint to Aubrey in tears, or burst into song. It was one of those moments, you know? One of those moments where you really don't know what to do. It was only at that point that I realised how ridiculous I looked, and how many people were laughing at me.

So I speed-walked to the office to go find Aubrey, who may or may not recognise me.

"Holy shit, Chloe, you look like Marilyn Manson on a bad day! Wait a second, is that actually you?"

That comment gave me an intense desire to leap forth and strangle Aubrey, but I managed to control myself by digging my sharpened (using a nail file- seems pretty "alternative", so why not?) nails into the soft palms of my hands. Taking a few deep breaths, I pulled the wrap-around shades off my head, and threw them onto Kimmy Jin's desk. She wasn't there, or I would have been subjected to a bitch-glare to rival the stare of Medusa.

"Yeah, it's me!" I tried to maintain my usual, chirpy tone. "How do I look?"

"Like a chain-smoking fifty year old hooker. Chloe, what on earth possessed you to do this to yourself?!"

Her tone was almost frantic. At first I was a little touched, thinking that she was genuinely nervous for my wellbeing and/or sanity, but she seemed more concerned with what I was wearing than anything else. Aubrey leaned down and poked the expertly torn jeans desperately, her eyes huge and frighteningly magnified behind her ginormous glasses. Eventually, she looked up at me once more, a vaguely pleading look on her face.

I shut my eyes, readying myself for the verbal onslaught. Aubrey literally looked about ready to puke, or something.

_Please don't puke over the McFly t-shirt…_

She seemed to be restraining herself. "Right, Chloe, we're abandoning this story. You _can't _walk around school like that. It's inconceivable. You look like Adam Lambert!"

Inconceivable. Good word. But I was pretty sure it didn't mean what she thought it did; I chose not to comment, however. In her state, Aubrey probably would have vomited all over me rather than allowed me to make a suggestion about checking the dictionary. It would only lead to another dictionary-thesaurus study party, and I speak for the entirety of the newspaper staff, when I say _never again._

At my resolute look, Aubrey sighed. "Alright, alright. Have you got anywhere yet? We have limited time."

For a moment I considered screaming at her, before relaxing my composure, and letting an easy smile come onto my face. The thought of weird, imbecilic, _hot _Beca Mitchell talking to me was enough to give me a shit-eating grin.

"We-e-ell, I came into school today on my scooter," Aubrey exhaled, shutting her eyes; I ignored her calmly. "And Bumper Allen started pushing me around, because I said his mother looks like a shelf, which she does. Do shelves have racks? Because that woman does- as I was saying…" We both shuddered at the thought of Mrs Allen's enormous breasts. "And Beca Mitchell comes up and defends me! It was so cool. And then, she turns around and says hi… And it turns out she doesn't recognise me like this, and thinks I'm a new kid; I went along with it. So, I'm going to infiltrate her gang as Samantha 'Sam' Nicholl, badass extraordinaire… She said she'd see me around. How cool is that?"

If only I knew…


	3. Balaclavas, Post-Its, and Hipsters

**Balaclava Guy for President.**

**Before you ask: No, I don't particularly like Jesse. But this isn't a LET'S ALL HATE JESSE fic, he actually has a fair bit to do, I just antagonise him a little bit in this chapter.**

I left the office feeling more than a little satisfied with myself. Aubrey hadn't been happy with the state of my hair, but I'd informed her that the dye was wash-out (my mom hadn't liked the idea of anything permanent), and she seemed happy enough. Well, she'd left me alone, at least; Fat Amy had casually walked in with a ginormous burger in hand, and Aubrey had a real vendetta against food in the workplace. I'd sidled out while she was busy lecturing the Australian girl, and slammed the door behind me hard in order to let them both know I'd vacated the room.

Out of fear that Aubrey might lynch me, I decided to run down the corridor. It wasn't elementary school, after all, and none of the teachers here seemed to have a problem with kids running between classes. After all, at least I wasn't shitting on the floor, like Tommy Harris did one time... It was Mexican Day in the cafeteria and, naturally, the bathroom queue was insane. So Tommy got tired of waiting, pulled down his pants, and let it loose all over the floor. Ever since then, teachers have been more relaxed about what happens in the corridors.

So anyway, I was just going down the corridor, when I noticed a crowd gathering up ahead. For a few moments I stood still dumbly, unsure of what to do. Usually, I tended to avoid big crowds, for the fear of getting beaten up. Especially then, since I was looking like such a gosh darned hipster. And everyone hates a hipster, right?

It took about five minutes for me to realise that there was a big fight going on. And in the centre of it was hotheaded, audacious _hot _Beca Mitchell.

Intrigued, I moved into the crowd, attempting to blend in as well as I could with dull grey hair and wrap-around sunglasses. A few people gave me odd looks, and a cheerleader with peroxide blonde hair shuffled away from me, baby blue eyes wide and a little fearful.

"God…"

I peered over the shoulder of a burly looking guy with a balaclava on (looked a little bit like a terrorist, but I didn't point that out for fear of being shot) and, when I realised that I couldn't see the action, I sighed. Poking balaclava-terrorist-guy in the back, I waited for him to turn around.

He reluctantly did so, and looked down at me. I'm pretty sure his eyebrows were raised underneath the balaclava, although I couldn't really tell. Nevertheless, he looked pretty terrifying.

"Hey, can I sit on your shoulders, please? I can't see."

Balaclava guy looked at me like I was immensely stupid, rolling his dark eyes back in his head, before sighing and squatting down. For a moment I thought that he was going to do a Tommy Harris and slip his pants down, and backed away, before realising his intention. Slipping my legs over his shoulders, I pressed myself against the back of his head, and he stood back up again with me sat firmly in place. He swayed uncertainly for a few seconds, and I was momentarily afraid that he was going to throw me off, before I found my bearings.

Beca Mitchell was standing in the middle of the crowd, her fists raised, and her knuckles scraped and bleeding from impact. She was flanked on either side by two attractive dark-skinned punk guys, with a random white kid standing a few feet behind them, bringing up the rear. For some reason, one of the dark-skinned guys was holding a unicycle in some kind of defensive position, and the other one (who looked almost as hipster as I did) had a pair of broken glasses in his hand. They weren't the most impressive trio, and the random white kid standing behind them ruined the effect almost completely, but they had spirit. And they were a great deal more hard-hitting than Bumper Allen and three of his show choir friends, who were all groaning and nursing bruises and split lips.

It seemed the fight, in itself, was over. Aww, sucks… Although I prided myself on being a remarkably nice girl, I did enjoy a good _brawl. _Not being in one. Watching was far more fun.

Emerging from a pleasant daydream that involved the previous battle being performed shirtless (with Bumper and his friends having their flabby bodies censored, like in the Sims!), I felt a gaze upon me, and looked down from my hefty vantage point to see Beca was staring up at me. Her blue eyes travelled down to look at Balaclava-Guy, before her eyes met mine once more. There was the usual mix of confusion and amusement in them, before she shot me a small grin, and turned back to her friends, who were congratulating one another about their victory over the show-choir kids.

My heart thudding hard enough against my chest to crack my ribs open, I stared dreamily after her, mouth a little open. She was so beautiful! With her scraped up knees, and her converse, and her skateboard, and her bouncy hair, and-

Balaclava-Guy promptly dropped me, sending me crashing to the ground. A couple of small freshmen cushioned my fall, but they didn't take all of the impact. There was a crack as they smacked into the ground, and I felt an unpleasant shock running through me.

"Not the ankles! OOOH, TENDER." One of the freshmen cried out as I got off them, clutching at his ankles. I frowned at him as sternly as I could, shaking my head disapprovingly. What did he have to whine about, really, when his friend was lying unconscious on the ground next to him? Freshmen are so silly.

Wandering away from the unconscious freshman and his tender friend, I glared at Balaclava Guy (who remained emotionless), before following in the direction Beca Mitchell went. Sure, I technically had class, but who cares? This scoop would be _far _more important to my future career than, you know, good grades. And alright, perhaps it was an excuse to stalk my long time crush. So what?

I found Beca and her gang on the field, by the west building. The west building hadn't been occupied for thirty years, and was overrun with vermin and the graffiti was starting to breed and multiply. A strange smell had been coming from the place for about six months, like the stench of rotting meat. Aubrey had suggested we get someone in there, since Tommy Harris had disappeared about six or seven months ago and his parents were frantic- but nobody was willing to set foot in the place. As Fat Amy said, there was probably a Rat King in there, and maybe even Slenderman. There was no way that any of us were going into the cursed west building.

"Uhm…" Looking down, I realised that I'd become so distracted by thinking of what the west building could possibly contain, that I'd walked right into the midst of Beca's gang, and they were all staring at me, apparently a little creeped out. It took a few moments for me to get over the initial heart attack I'd had when somebody spoke, in order to smile awkwardly.

"Hi!"

They were silent. Even Beca, who had previously shown at least some tolerance towards "Samantha Nicholl" looked a little shocked. The guy with the unicycle had it back in a defensive position again, as if he was expecting me to attack.

"Oh… It's Sam, right? Hey." Beca smiled awkwardly at me, and I turned to look at her properly. She was leaning back against a tree, an empty can of Dr Pepper lying beside her, and a lazy expression on her face. She sat up to look at me properly, her eyes fixated on my hair. "I saw you earlier, on that guy's back. I didn't know you had a think for balaclavas. Want to sit down?"

Cheeks burning red, I accepted her invitation and plopped down beside the guy who'd broken his glasses earlier, and had now taped them back together. On anyone else it would look incredibly stupid, but he managed to pull off the hipster-nerd look that people were so into. One that I had previously tried- and failed.

"Yeah, I'm Sam. Samantha Nicholl. Call me Samantha and I'll break your jaw…" I parroted what Sam always used to say, before mentally slapping a hand over my mouth. I'd almost forgotten how offensive it sounded. "Not literally! I'm actually kind of nice."

Beca was laughing, and I readied myself for instant dismissal from the group, and possible social murder. Not suicide, but murder. These… these _hipsters _would socially murder me, and my life would be over! Not like just sitting inside and watching reruns of Daria all day because I _wanted _to, but because I _had _to. I would be the most unpopular person in school! What possessed me to tell Beca Mitchell that I would break her jaw if she called me Samantha?

_She can call me whatever she wants… NONONONONO._

"Okay, dude… You're officially weird… But I kind of like it. How's your first day been so far, Sam?"

Okay, what?

"Well, I haven't exactly been into class yet… You know, because class is for people who call themselves Eugene and have glas-" I cut myself off before finishing the word, taking a nervous glass at hipster-guy. He didn't seem to have noticed, and was too busy blowing smoke rings to pay attention to a word I was saying. What if he was called Eugene? Jeez, this is more difficult than I'd thought it would be…

That's something for the notebook, though. They get into fights, skip class, allow grey-haired people in McFly t-shirts who threaten to attack them into their inner circle, and smoke. I'll have to write it down when they're not looking.

"So yeah, hasn't been much of a first day yet," I lied. "Balaclava-Guy dropped me on a couple of freshmen, and I think one of them broke an ankle. Said something about it being tender… whatever that means."

Beca chuckled, leaning back against the tree. Her blue eyes were fixated on me with a kind of intelligent sparkle, one that really made me feel special. There was something special about Beca, although I couldn't really put my finger on it. She smelt good, that was something. She was sweet, and beat boys up who were twice her size. She was smart, but spent her entire life smoking weed and skipping class. She defended a "new kid outcast" on their "first day", and called them weird multiple times. So, all in all, Beca Mitchell was an anomaly.

Great. Easy writing, right there.

"Balaclava-Guy?" She asked, tone incredulous, eyebrows raised. She giggled. "You're a work and a half. I love you, man."

The white kid from earlier, who was sprawled rather obnoxiously over the grass, laughed loudly. When we both turned to look at him, he quailed for a moment, before relaxing into an arrogant and obviously faked pose.

Beca smirked. "Oh yeah, I haven't introduced you to my bitches. The white kid with the inflated head over there is Jesse." Jesse nodded, and shot me a relatively well-meaning smile. Next, Beca gestured at the hipster guy with the taped-up glasses. "That's Donald. He's a hipster."

_I knew it…_

Donald sat up blearily, shaking his head. He straightened his glasses out on his nose, and puffed out a smoke ring. "I'm not a hipster." He murmured, before flopping back down, his cigarette almost falling out of his mouth.

"And the guy with the unicycle is… you guessed it… Unicycle."

Unicycle grinned at me, shooting me a roguish wink. I couldn't help but blush; even though sexy, sweet, _hot _Beca Mitchell was sitting right next to me, this boy was certainly very attractive.

Beca turned back to me, her eyes sparkling; I promptly forgot all about Unicycle and his good looks, in order to gaze into her face. There was a leaf stuck behind her ear, but I scarcely even noticed. "So, Sam, what are you good at? Got anything that defines you?"

I thought for a moment.

"Oh! Well, I… um… I invented Post-Its."


End file.
